Day: 3
Camp: 3
Location: N 53 07’ 38.2” W 99 06’ 13.8”
Distance: ****
WX: – 26 deg overnight -15 deg daytime high, winds West 16km light snow and overcast in am, poor sight lines, clearing with sunny periods in pm
Travel Time: 6hrs
Not a bad morning, we were a little late on the departure as we wanted to be out by 9am and were hoping to put in a 20km day… not quite. So cold in the morning hard to get rolling, were taking turns getting the stove going in the morning for breakfast water. Who ever is in the middle gets up and dressed first then pulls all his gear and sleeping system out of the tent and boils the water so it is ready by the time the others are out of the tent.
Lots of slogging and hard pulling through the miles of busted up ice fields, we are starting to get a good idea on depth perception and navigation, takes hours to reach a sight point off in the distance as well as it is hard to pinpoint exactly where you are in the grand scheme of things. We are all taking turns leading or route finding but sometimes we just all take our own path. We got a bit to spread apart today, I stopped for a few minutes to take care of some business and Marc got a bit to far north of Neal in the ice fields, at times I could barely see him and sometimes not at all, we need to stay closer together especially when the weather is overcast and unpredictable. The sunny breaks in the afternoon easily lifted everyone’s spirits, not that we were even really down at all. I got a good slice on the bottom of my sled today? Strange must be some really sharp ice, should be able to patch it up somehow especially if we do find that fishing cabin that some of the natives talked about to be at the tip of Long point. Felt good all day, left knee all good and the little blister on my right toe is not to troublesome. I’m little worried that the pads of my feet on both sides could blister as they are becoming quite sore and difficult to keep a nice stride. The boots I’m wearing are unbelievable warm and comfortable they are designed by one of the most accomplished polar explorers of our time Richard Webber. The insides are a heavy felt style liner so there is a lot of friction as I work the boots in. Ill tape the pads of my feet this evening and that should take care of things.
We rolled into camp a little early tonight as we didn’t want to get into another ice field and have no where to set up as the sun was setting. We got the camp set up quick and started on the long awaited pasta marinara! Then we start the process of boiling 7 ½ litres of water from chunks of lake ice, the chunks of ice have been a blessing already as it is more time and fuel efficient to melt ice then snow and we find that lake Winnipeg water to have a sweet taste to it. Here is the evening process so far and right now we are cooking outside to keep extra moisture out of the tent for as long as possible. Once we are more exposed out past Long point we will start cooking in the front vestibule of the tent. After setting up the stoves and creating a wind block out of snow drifts or ice chunks we boil up two litres of water. For dinner we each have a ration of freeze dried food that is inside a thick foil zip lock. This package contains 700 to 1020 calories per person and all you do is add two cups of boiling water to the bag and let it sit in your jacket or in the pot cover for ten mins and it is ready to eat. We then de ice our plastic water bottles and each person takes two 1 litre bottles of boiling hot water with them to bed. The bottles are a great way to keep toasty warm through out the night warming up any cold extremities. The bottles are then ready for drinking the following day and if stored properly will not freeze over the 20 hour period. We also have a 1 ½ litre plastic group water bottle that we fill up at night that serves for our breakfast water. The only thing we need to do in the morning is pour the warm 1 ½ litre bottle of water into the pot and bring it to a boil, this takes a maximum of 5 mins and were ready to eat and pack up with 2 litres of water for drinking through the day.
I hit the tent a little early tonight as I had a bit of a chill that I couldn’t shake and I wanted to tend to my feet before they became a problem. We tried using the sat phone tonight but could not get a call through for what ever reason. At least people can track us on the spot as long as it keeps working, I was hoping to update the website along the way as there are some people back home planning to follow along as well as I was hoping to give the Pembroke newspaper some updates. Oh well, will try again another night. Fed Frisky a bowl of Mr Noodle soup with extra melted snow for water to keep him hydrated and made him his nightly bed on top of one of my duffle’s, we also used Neal’s sled to make him a roof. Ive already grown quite attached to the dog and will keep him alive to the end of the trip if I have to share all my rations, but then I’m not sure what to do with him?
Could see the lights of Grand Rapids way off in the distance tonight along with a huge stream of smoke in the air above the town? The ice cracked and growled right under our tent all night and a few times felt as if it would stretch or split open and swallow our tent!
